Wednesday, 18 July 2012

Why Bane? No, why Bain?

Have you heard this new movie, the Batman movie, what is it, The Dark Knight Lights Up or whatever the name is. That’s right, Dark Knight Rises. Lights Up, same thing. Do you know the name of the villain in this movie? Bane. The villain in The Dark Knight Rises is named Bane, B-a-n-e. What is the name of the venture capital firm that Romney ran and around which there’s now this make-believe controversy? Bain. The movie has been in the works for a long time. The release date’s been known, summer 2012 for a long time. Do you think that it is accidental that the name of the really vicious fire breathing four eyed whatever it is villain in this movie is named Bane?

To answer the question that’s asked, it’s no coincidence at all, because of this:

But that’s beside the point. The real question—the one that no one seems to be asking—is why Bain? I know the real reason is ego cheap and clean, but it boggles the mind that these titans of industry decided that their public face should be the homonym of a word which means, according to my Oxford English Dictionary,

1. A slayer or murderer; one who causes the death or destruction of another.

2. a. That which causes death, or destroys life. b. Poison. Also in comb. in names of of poisonous plants or substances, as in Dogbane, Henbame, Leopard’s Bane, Rat’s Bane, Wolf’s Bane, etc.

3. Murder, death, destruction.

4. That which causes ruin, or is pernicious to well-being: the agent or instrument of ruin or woe, the ‘curse.’

5. Fatal mischief: woeful or hapless fate.

6. A disease in sheep, the ‘rot.’

Which means that a group of seemingly intelligent people—at least as judged by their inherited wealth—sat around in a board room one day and decided to christen their corporation with a name whose most positive association is “[a] disease in sheep, the ‘rot.’” The fact that any of their failures could be accurately described as having been “the agent or instrument of ruin or woe, the ‘curse’” never seems to have passed their respective minds. It’s the equivalent of opening a company called We Exploit Child Labor for Great Profit, then wondering why no one seems to want to buy your jeans. And yet one of the minds responsible for this feels himself qualified to serve as the Executive Brand of the United States of America?

He’ll homonously be the bane of America as much as he and his party literally are.

The homonym issue doesn't seem to have bothered Baen books. As Spider Robinson wrote, "I know a simple, four-letter word whose meaning can, by the transposition of the last two letters, be precisely reversed-without altering its pronunciation."